


Dream Logic

by Neyiea



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandy sometimes uses dream logic in the real world, much to Pitch's everlasting exasperation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Logic

Pitch is minding his own business, not even causing a ruckus for once. He's just brushing down his Nightmares and braiding their manes and tails out of sheer boredom. After his last scuffle with the Guardians he is not too keen on going topside to spread fear, but he imagines it won't be long until he ventures out, there's only so much he can do down here to keep himself occupied after all.

He finishes another braid and moves on to the next when out of the corner of his eye he sees a shimmer and turns to see The Sandman casually enter his lair, gazing around curiously.

He takes a step behind his Nightmares out of caution, crosses his arms and give Sandy the evil eye, although the other doesn't seem to notice.

"What are you doing here?" He snarls after getting sick of waiting for Sandy to look his way. The Guardian finally turns to him, blinking slowly as if he's only just woken up.

It irks Pitch to no end. How is it that this half asleep space-case is the only one he's ever truly worried about?

"How did you get here?"

All the doors to and from his realm are tightly locked and can only be opened by him.

Sandy shrugs and illustrates a classic looking haunted house with his sand. When the front door opens the house ripples and turns into Pitch's realm.

"It doesn't work like that! You can't just open a simple door and reach my inner sanctum," Pitch sputters indignantly.

Sandy shrugs, obviously he can.

Pitch grits his teeth and the Nightmares around him begin pawing at the ground, becoming uneasy in Sandy's continued presence.

"Well if you found your way in you can just as easily find your way out. Leave." He demands before turning his attention back to his Nightmares. Out of sight, out of mind.

When he finally finishes braiding he looks around to find that Sandy is gone, but he's left something behind. A door where one never existed. 

Pitch steps forward curiously and kneels down to inspect the entryway closely. It's only four feet tall with an intricate border carved right into the stone and gold dusted handle. It isn't even properly hidden away in the shadows, just standing there for all the world to see!

He grabs the handle and tries to turn it only to find the door's locked.

He looks closer, wondering if he missed something in his initial observation but no, there isn't even a keyhole.

"Great," he mutters, "he probably made another door when he snuck in."

He searches high and low for the other door and eventually finds it not in a wall, but on the ceiling. He stares at it for a good five minutes, trying to figure out how to best hide it before he gives up on that idea. Instead he gathers together old furniture and loose bricks and piles them on top of each other in a precarious sort of pillar until the very top of it is pressed right up against the door. It may not be hidden, but at least now he can be sure Sandy will never be able to pass through there again.

As for the other doorway, he slides an old wardrobe in front of it and proceeds to forget about the whole ordeal. Sandy was probably just sneaking about to make sure he wasn't up to no good and wouldn't come around to bother him again.

Pitch sighs in relief.

Thank goodness.

x-x-x

It's not that Jack has a favourite fellow Guardian, everyone's got their good and bad points, but some are a lot nicer to work around than others. Tooth's so full of energy and exuberance, but the constant fingers in his mouth are a bit of a downer. Bunny is great, but really easy to rile up even when Jack doesn't mean to be annoying. North is just plain cool and they usually see eye to eye on most things, but he sometimes treats Jack like he's a kid and, hello, over three hundred here. 

Sandy not only has respect for personal space, a good temperament and treats Jack like an equal, but is a fantastic listener and is genuinely fun to be around. If there was a downside to hanging around Sandy so often it would be that after you spend too much time with him things start to get a little weird. Nothing too big, just seeing things from the corner of your eye that you're fairly sure wasn't there before and dealing with the occasional object you knew wasn't there before.

Sandy doesn't really seem aware of what he's doing, he just accepts whatever happens like it's completely normal and goes on like nothing's happened. It's enough to make anyone curious. 

So one night when Jack sees Sandy calmly fly to the door of a house that looks incredibly haunted he can't help but follow. One problem. Sandy disappears right as he passes through the threshold. 

Jack slowly steps inside and looks around, then causally steps back out. Nothing's changed, Sandy's just gone.

Weird. 

When he asks North about it a couple of days later the older Guardian just laughs loudly and pats his back with too much force before explaining that it was just part of who Sandy was. He was a dreamer, someone who saw symbolism in the smallest things, who could have an offhand thought about something and suddenly have it right there, ready for him to take, who could see doors where there were none and could actually pass through them into whole new realms.

Strong magic, but magic that only made sense to him.

Frankly that just sounds awesome. Clearly Jack and Sandy need to team up more often so they can prank everyone and be home in time for tea.

When he tracks Sandy down the following day he finds him flying into the same haunted house and though he picks up speed he is too slow to pass through at the same time Sandy does.

He crosses his arms and pouts, but resolves to stay put by the doorway until Sandy reappears.

He has to come out sometime, right?

x-x-x

When Pitch strolls into his library only to see Sandy making himself comfortable on a wingback chair he backs right out of the room and down the hallway.

Maybe it was just a hallucination, or he was trapped in some sort of fever dream.

He stops at the foot of his self made pillar and stares. The door in the ceiling has shifted forward just enough to be clear of the obstruction. 

He takes a deep breath and slowly runs a hand down his face. It's okay, he can handle this, it's only the person he's most wary of sneaking around in his home with the ease of a practiced burglar, laying in wait in one of Pitch's most visited areas.

Actually cancel that, it's not okay.

He gathers together every scrap of irritation he can manage and storms back into the library in a huff.

Sandy pauses in the midst of bringing an olive up to his face to smile at Pitch sleepily. He then tosses the olive into his mouth and holds out a bowl, offering them to Pitch.

"I don't want your olives Sandman, I want you to leave."

Sandy's lips pull downwards in a confused frown before a lightbulb literally goes off over his head.

The bowl of olives it set down to be replaced by an olive branch, which he holds out with even more enthusiasm, clearly wanting Pitch to take it.

Oh God, the proverbial olive branch. Pitch runs a hand through his hair and frets. To accept the branch would be a sign of reconciliation, but he'd like to think he has a little more pride than what it would take for him to accept what was more than likely a pity gesture. To reject it could irritate Sandy and he's well aware of what happens when The Sandman is angry. This has to be some sort of test. He hates tests.

He sighs explosively, not at all ready for this.

"I'm going to leave now and when I come back if you are not gone I will force untold amounts of caffeine on you."

Sandy recoils slightly and Pitch feels a surge of triumph well up within him as he turns his back on the other. Caffeine is no idle threat to a spirit who is all about sleep, whose very centre is dreams. Personally Pitch loves caffeine, in large amounts it makes people paranoid, anxious, nervous, and it makes his job so much easier when they finally do fall into a restless sleep. There is no doubt about it, he has won this round.

As he closes the door behind him he feels something odd brush at his temple, he reaches up and pulls away a crown of olive leaves. He holds it at arms length, frowns as though it's done something particularly offensive, and lets it drop to the ground. He's been around long enough to have a vague knowledge that sometimes things just happen around Sandy, but frankly he's never spent enough time in the other spirit's presence for that to be a concern.

Clearly it's going to be an issue now.

He turns back to the library, a half formed speech about learning to control his powers already on the tip of his tongue, but when he opens the door Sandy is gone. He deflates slightly before remembering that the Guardian had been there uninvited anyways.

He nods to himself in satisfaction before a stray thought hits him.

There is only one door into his library, and he has been standing in front of it the whole time.

"Oh no." If Sandy had left another little doorway for himself Pitch is going to scream.

He carefully checks the room over once, then twice, but thankfully doesn't find a door. He does, however, spy something that does not belong. It wouldn't stick out to anyone else but this is Pitch's library, his hallowed ground, and he knows where every single book belongs.

There is a new, dark tome wedged in-between a nearly identical set of books. At least it isn't gold, although having it stick out so obviously would probably ruin its purpose. He steps forward and reaches out, already dreading what will happen.

Sure enough when he pulls the new book out an entire section of his bookcase swings back on a hinge. He can't say he's surprised, although he is most definitely annoyed, but at least Sandy didn't use one of his pre-existing books as the trigger.

He ducks down slightly to peer though the secret entrance and lets himself sigh. He should have known.

He steps through and closes the wardrobe door behind him. Like the doorway in the ceiling the one Sandy uses as an exit has shifted a couple feet to the side, thus rendering all of Pitch's hard work useless.

Well if he can't keep Sandy from coming in and wandering about like he owns the place maybe he can just ignore him. The next time he intrudes Pitch won't even so much as look his way, maybe then he'll finally stop poking his nose where it doesn't belong.

Life goes on and while he would never admit it aloud he becomes somewhat fond of the secret doorway in his library. There's something very classic horror film/mad scientist about it and he can at least admire the aesthetics of it. The mostly empty, cavernous room it leads to ruins the illusion though; if only it opened up to a smaller, more important space where it was the only way to get in or out. That's how secret doorways should be.

Still, he supposes that the fact that the rooms are a fair deal away from each other makes up for it slightly. If he wasn't so set on ignoring Sandy the next time he showed up he might have asked how he'd accomplished the passageway at all because it makes absolutely no sense. It's a delightfully absurd but frustrating puzzle that he doesn't even think he has all the pieces for. But with the Guardians still at large and Pitch still not quite up to personally going aboveground he's got nothing but time to figure this out on his own.

There is a handy little thing he's heard of called 'the scientific method' that he decides to enlist to help him during his tests. It's a quaint little procedure that the humans came up with years ago that only has four steps and involves a lot of finicking around. Sounds like a piece of cake.

He takes an afternoon off of his plans to do absolutely nothing to see how much of his lair he can change around, because if Sandy can do it he can too, he just hasn't figured out how yet. His home is already very labyrinthian; countless near identical corridors linked together in a spiderweb-like pattern with everything important in the centre, but imagine how hard it would be to navigate if he could change it at will. Block off passages, have doorways to take people back to the beginning, maybe an oubliette here or there. The possibilities are endless enough to make him dizzy, all he has to do is figure out how.

He walks up to one of the first dead-ends anyone attempting to sneak up on him hits, carefully looks the wall up and down and wills it to disappear.

Nothing happens.

He closes his eyes and pictures the brick crumbling away, a new hallway revealed as the wall completely disintegrates.

When he opens his eyes the wall is still there and he crosses his arms and impatiently taps his foot, trying to glare it into submission.

That doesn't work either.

He verbally commands it, screams at it, pleads with it, threatens it with a pick-axe, but the wall absolutely refuses to do anything other than be a wall. He doesn't have the patience for any more of this, and it's only been fifteen minutes.

He leans back against it with a muffled curse.

"There isn't a wall here," he says with a surety he doesn't feel in a last ditch effort, but it's still there.

How irritating. Why could Sandy mess about with his realm so easily when he couldn't get rid of one measly wall? Not fair.

Well, you know what they say.

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

x-x-x

When Sandy makes his way to the abandoned house that leads him into Pitch's realm and spots Jack passed out in front of the door he can't help but be surprised. When he shakes the younger spirit awake Jack is equally shocked to see him.

"Sandy! But- but I've been sitting in front of this door for ages and you never came back out. How are you outside?"

Sandy shows an image of himself going in one door and out another and Jack covers his face with his hands and groans.

"I should have known." He looks up through a gap in his fingers. "Where does this door lead you to?"

Sandy purses his lips, unsure whether sharing that particular information would be a wise decision. Jack pouts and bats his eyelashes charmingly, when that doesn't work his lips quirk upwards in a shy smile that would be sure to make Tooth swoon. Sandy however remains unmoved.

"Come on, please? I'm curious, you know what happens when I'm curious."

Does he ever. When Jack wants to know something he tends to stalk you around and you'd never have a moment's peace until you answered his questions. He essentially exasperates you into submission.

He carefully signs that he can't tell Jack yet as he's only recently begun visiting this place and is fairly certain that, though he hasn't been physically expelled from the realm, he's not exactly the most welcome guest.

That just makes Jack more eager to know but he lets Sandy pass with the promise of telling him soon, as long as everything goes well.

He slips into Pitch's realm and doesn't so much try to navigate the maze of hallways as he tries to find Pitch. In the back of his mind he pictures the other spirit, grumpy as ever, and from then on it's easy to find him. Locked away in his library, Sandy should have known.

He glides inside expecting Pitch to look up from his book and glare at him customarily, but he does no such thing. Instead he seems to focus on the tome even harder, lips pursing in concentration. Sandy curiously floats up behind him to read over his shoulder, but the text is too small for him to make out from the distance he's at. He pulls out a pair of reading glasses and leans in closer.

Pitch snaps the book shut and flings himself from the couch he'd been on, rubbing at the side of his neck as he glared at, no, around Sandy. He wasn't looking directly at him.

"Oh, nameless phantom haunting my library," Pitch begins dramatically through gritted teeth. Sandy's eyebrows slowly raise up to his hairline. "I ask only that you do not leave this room in disarray, thank you." He then just walks right out the door, not even so much as glancing in Sandy's direction.

Sandy sits in a stupor for a handful of seconds before he moves to follow Pitch, a frown tugging at the corners of his lips. He's not fond of being ignored, especially so blatantly. 

He's not sure which way Pitch went but once again it's less about looking and more about finding, and he's very good at finding things when he wants them. Some would say unnaturally so. 

In no time at all he is standing behind Pitch, crossing his arms and letting his foot tap loudly against the ground.

Pitch jumps back and looks down at Sandy, finally, before his gaze drifts up to look in the direction Sandy came from.

It's blocked off by a wall.

His eyebrows furrow and he opens his mouth to say something but snaps it shut with an audible click of teeth before he manages to get any words out. He rubs a hand against his temples and resolutely turns away.

"Stop mucking about Sandy, I'm ignoring you."

He's not doing a very good job of it, but Sandy's not exactly going to complain about his lack of expertise. 

He hovers around Pitch's head, reaches out to ruffle his hair, and when Pitch's response to that is: "oh, what's that? it must be the wind," he tugs. Not too hard, just enough to get a reaction.

Pitch sputters and turns to glare at him before abruptly spinning on his heel to stalk through the hallway.

Only to find there's a wall in the way. Not only that, but Sandy appears to be giving off enough ambient light to get rid of any shadows for him to slip into.

He's effectively trapped.

Sandy very calmly pulls a green apple out of his robe and takes a loud bite, chewing thoughtfully before offering it out to Pitch.

"No, I do not want some of your apple, Stop- stop offering me food!" First the olives and now this? Eating together, breaking bread together, is symbolic enough outside of dreams. He's not entirely sure what sort of logic Sandy runs on but he knows better than to take something hat is probably the product of Sandy's imagination. One bite could like him to Sandy like Persephone to Hades.

Sandy shrugs and continues eating his apple, chewing in an appallingly loud, annoying way that Pitch cannot ignore no matter how hard he tries.

"Would you stop that! Barging into my home uninvited, messing around with my things, and now this? You have the manners of an undisciplined child, act your age."

Sandy raises a brow and calmly informs Pitch that he's not exactly prone to acting his age either, he's just living by example.

"I have no idea what you mean by that," Pitch huffs indignantly, "now get rid of that wall so that we both can leave."

_Wall_ , Sandy repeats with furrowed eyebrows before casting a glance around them, _which wall?_

"It doesn't matter, just let me out of here."

Sandy shrugs but does as told, he lets his gaze drift around, unfocussed, for a moment and when he looks back to Pitch he makes a slow spinning motion with his hand.

Pitch turns to see that his hallway is back to normal and while he's happy that this ordeal is over, for now at least, he's also incredibly annoyed that Sandy can do these sorts of things without a second thought.

"Stop playing around with the layout of my lair, you're messing it up," he grouses as he begins to walk away, Sandy trailing after him silently and tapping at his chin in contemplation.

Pitch sure was sulking about his lair an awful lot. He didn't see how a doorway or several were that big of a deal, and frankly speaking his ceiling door was hardly noticeable, unlike the mass of objects Pitch has shoved under it to try and keep it from opening.

"It's not about how visible it is, it's the principle of the matter," Pitch protested. "How would you feel if I snuck into your home and started shifting things around to suit my needs without consulting you first?"

Pitch, in his home? To be honest that sounded kind of-

"Terrible. You would feel terrible, which would just egg me on to do more damage." Pitch strolls into a familiar room and steps aside in a grand gesture to usher Sandy through his exit door.

Sandy looks up, unperturbed, and tells Pitch he's free to visit the Island of Sleepy Sands whenever he'd like. The invitation makes his eyes go shifty as if he suspects there's some sort of catch, but he nods as if he may, someday in the far off future, take Sandy up on his offer.

"Goodbye Sandy, now go before I put a bell around your neck so that I can tell when you're intruding."

Sandy silently laughs and waves before heading out the door, leaving Pitch alone with only his Nightmares for company.

Well, their manes have probably become unbraided and tangled by now, he should probably brush them out again.

He whistles, quiet but shrill, and the few Nightmares that aren't currently on the surface flock towards him. He combs out their hair idly, mind drifting elsewhere. 

The invitation to Sandy's home is unexpected and he's not entirely sure what to think of it. He knows the other well enough to be sure that it isn't a trap, Sandy is a little more upfront about those sorts of things compared to himself, but he's exceedingly curious as to why. Why would Sandy give him outright permission to enter his home? Here is yet another puzzle for him to solve.

Well, he sighs, it's not like he doesn't have the time.

Of course thinking about Sandy's frankly terrible decision to invite him anywhere had the adverse effect of making him ponder about Sandy in general which, in turn, makes him think about Sandy's ability to warp reality. 

It was just so frustrating to not be able to do something when someone else could do it without a second thought.

Without a second thought...

Sandy never seemed to really concentrate on what he was doing, he just did it. Maybe Pitch was thinking too hard, trying too hard, and that was why he couldn't seem to manage getting rid of one measly wall.

Clearly he had more tests to do. 

x-x-x

Sandy makes his way home after spending two solid weeks out sending dreams, in need of a little break. Normally he can last a little longer out in the field before he feels tired enough to let his dreamsand act without his guidance, but the past couple of weeks have been taxing.

Jack has been following him around, not as often and at a greater distance than he would usually bother with, but the curious-stalking has begun. It doesn't really bother him, it's more amusing than anything else, but the more Jack follows him the less he feels like he can slip away to see Pitch.

Pitch, who he hasn't seen since inviting him to his home two weeks ago.

It's not for lack of trying on his part. He sneaks away to Pitch's realm whenever he has a spare moment, but the Nightmare King just hasn't been there. He's made attempts to find him on the surface, but he hasn't managed to come across him yet which strikes him as incredibly odd.

He is normally so good at finding things, after all.

He decides to take a slight detour on his way to the Island of Sleepy Sands. He's already past by his usual entrance so he glides into a particularly ominous patch of forest and between one blink and the next the dark of the woods has been replaced by the shadowy corridors of Pitch's home. He searches high and low for Pitch but can't manage to find him, not even braiding his Nightmares' manes or hiding out in the library.

With a sigh he pulls out the trigger book he'd planted and walks past the bookshelves and out through the wardrobe door. Maybe Pitch will be in next time.

He walks through his customary exit and all at once dark, oppressive hallways are replaced by bright, open rooms. Sandy trails through his home feeling oddly dejected, eyes mostly focussed on the floor.

It is because of this that he does not notice the first sign of something amiss, but he does not miss the second. A door that should be shut has been opened.

The door to his library.

He slips inside and takes a careful look around. Everything seems to be in its proper spot, but something still strikes him as being wrong even though he can't place it.

There! Nestled beside a collection of fairy tales is a dream dictionary, of all things, and Sandy doesn't own one of those, nor would he put it so obviously out of place if he did. That sort of thing belongs in the reference section, not the inspiration division. 

He steps forward, intrigued, and pulls the book out.

An entire section of his bookshelf shifts back and to the side, revealing an entrance to his kitchen which is located on the other side of his castle.

He sees a shadow out of the corner of his eye and smiles widely as he turns, already sure of what's behind him. 

Pitch Black stands there, casually leaning against a wall. Resting atop his head in a rather regal fashion is a crown of olive leaves and Sandy feels a faint, foreign scratch against his temple that tells him he's wearing the same. Pitch sinks his teeth into a strawberry and grins around it in a particularly pleased way.

"Good evening, Sandy."


End file.
